OUR GUIDE TO CREATING A SOURDOUGH STARTER
Here at B +G HQ we’ve been getting our bake on!! Below you’ll find our sourdough starter recipe to begin your sourdough journey. Your sourdough starter is the foundation of baking sourdough bread. Through proper maintenance and a little attention, it can provide you with countless healthy and delicious loaves of bread.
There are so many variations of a sourdough starter but we’ve kept this very simple so you can get creative at the loaf stage. Once your starter is ready (this can take around 4 days with this recipe!) then head back to the blog to discover our favourite sourdough loaf recipe. As we are relatively new to creating our own sourdough we thought we would also share some of our favourite loaf recipes and places to purchase it (if you don’t want to start from scratch!).
Here it goes… (make sure you also follow our journey on our instagram @balanceandglo and tag us in your creations)
What is a Sourdough Starter?
A sourdough starter is a culture containing a stable blend of wild yeasts and suitable lactic acid bacteria. The culture is fed with fresh flour and water (also called refreshing) consistently over a number of days. A sourdough starter is used to seed fermentation in new dough when baking bread and is responsible for leavening (making rise) and flavouring a loaf of sourdough bread.
In the recipe below we chose to use organic wholemeal rye flour, this is because the additional nutrients in rye flour, combined with keeping the mixture warm and highly hydrated, increase the reliability of creating a new starter.
Sourdough Starter Recipe
Equipment
Glass jar with lid (we used a kilner jar)
Thermometer
Measuring scales
Ingredients
25g organic wholemeal rye flour
25g water at approx 35 degrees
Method
Day 1
In your pot mix together 25g of flour and 25g of water. Put the lid on and leave it on the kitchen side.
Day 2
Add to your pot a further 25g of flour and 25g of water and mix together. Leave it on the kitchen side until tomorrow.
Day 3
Again, add 25g of flour and 25g of water to your pot and mix together.
Day 4
Add another 25g of flour and 25g of water to your pot and mix together.
In the warm months, your starter will show signs of life on day four, sometimes even by day three. If not, give another feed and wait until tomorrow.
When your starter is bubbling and increasing in volume its ready to bake bread with. It will smell acidic, sometimes really strong but never particularly unpleasant.
When it is ready - keep it in the fridge. It can last up to two months in the fridge without being fed but if there are any signs of mould, throw it away and start again!